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Sunday, July 22, 2012

IITs: Islands of Excellence or Islands of Exclusiveness?

The recent debate on whether there should be a common
entrance test for all engineering colleges in India or whether IITs should
continue to maintain their own entrance test throws open various
questions. While IITs refuse to dilute
their admission process maintaining that this process is the key to producing
top class graduates, the government contends that too many entrance tests
burden the students and therefore would like to include the class 12 scores in
the admission process.

I, on the other hand, think that this debate calls for
a completely new look at the admission process to all premier institutes in
India, whether they are IITs, NITs, IIMs, or others.

In our attempt to create islands of excellence we have
created an admission system called entrance tests. Traditionally, in a country where people
swore by their caste affiliations, where nepotism is a virtue, where entire
social system was based on deep rooted discrimination, an entrance test which
judged a person solely on the marks in an entrance test was greeted as a great
achievement. Because of its apparent
benefits, it created a new class of society which now swears by the ‘merit’
system, a new system which measures people solely by one single attribute –
marks obtained in one exam. Now, each
Indian is judged and measured by a number – called marks.

With the help from the British who created an
objective selection process, India now holds the view that an entrance test is
the only method to select candidates for any profession. Entrance tests are now the hallowed gates
which only the worthy can pass through while others are all kept out. Indians came up with an entrance test for
everything – to select the bureaucrats, to select the police officer, to create
the army officers, to create the lawyers, to create the doctors, to create the
engineers, and now a certain section of Indians believe that even a politician
should pass a test.

For a while, such an unbiased entrance test became the
savior of the middle class who otherwise would have had no chance to improve
their economic or social status. Entrance
tests emancipated the middle class, allowed them to quickly grab the new
opportunities without having to bow down to the political bosses or the
landlords. Objective tests became the
goal and it yielded great results for the Indian middle class.

Over a period of time, the entrance tests became tough
as the competition rose, and selection criteria became stringent. Only those middle class Indians who could
afford expensive tuitions and tutorials could now pass these tests. From the beginning, these entrance tests did
not take into account the fact that not all Indians were ready to take them on.
There were many Indians whose social and
economic conditions did not allow them to prepare well for these entrance
tests. Also, these entrance tests did
not ensure that the classroom was diverse enough to roughly reflect the
composition of actual population of the country.

Any attempt to make the classroom more diverse or
accommodate those sections which are backward was strongly opposed by the
middle class, which has now occupied the available positions in education and
administration. Taking the first mover’s
advantage, the middle class does not want to dilute the admission process to
include other elements into the selection procedure, such as one’s social and
economic background. They do not seem to
realize that the current admission process makes a classroom composed of only
very selected few sections of the society not reflective of the composition of
real society.

This middle class swears by these entrance tests
without realizing if these entrance tests are one dimensional, narrow in its
selection process, helping only those who already enjoy access to certain
amenities. The entrance tests have
entered the pantheon of many sacred objects Indians have. They don’t pay attention to another class of
Indians, the lower class, which comprises nearly half of India, who do not seem
to get through this selection process. While the middle class was busy
appropriating opportunities that the new Indian economy threw open, those
millions others were completely left out.

It’s high time we realize and admit that emphasis on
the scores from a single test does not constitute a perfect admission system. A person is made of many other things than
just a mere score or rank from an entrance test. No society can be equitable if it laid so
much stress on one exam’s results. Such an admission procedure would not take
into account the background of a person, the social handicaps, and the disadvantages
of one’s origins. It would not take into
account the biases and discriminations of the society which make the people
unequal before entering this entrance test.
It would not judge a person by his character, his passion, or his
determination, but only his ability to avail the necessary amenities by which
he becomes perfect in mastering in cracking a test. Such an admission process would not have a
role to play in creating this nation inclusive, in making this society
equitable.

In its mindless pursuit of ranks and scores, it misses
out on the objective of producing real excellence while it completely negates
the goal of creating an inclusive society.

Are we sure that students who pass with really high
scores in the topics of Math, Physics and Chemistry become good engineers? How come we don’t produce high quality engineering
products in India then? How come those
institutes in other countries which seem to accommodate students from various
background and social groups seem to become world class institutes producing
top notch engineers, world class research and Nobel Prize winners?

We have to ask ourselves some serious questions. Is there no place for diversity in our
premier institutes? Is there no place for accommodating students with passion
and interest but do not score high in the entrance test? Does the current
admission system based purely on scores obtained in one entrance test guarantee
that the candidate actually becomes a good engineer?

A comment from a professor of IIT that he cannot teach
a class which includes candidates from lower castes because of their low scores
does not bode well for future of India.
If a premier institute can only take the top 1% of the country to mold
them into engineers, but anything less than top 1% would dilute the classroom’s
excellence, speaks volumes about the inability of the institute to create top
class engineers. Instead it shows
clearly that the only reason these institutes produce top class engineers is
because it allows only top class candidates to enter. Actually, one can even doubt the efficacy of
such institutes. There is a strong case
to suggest that these institutes actually dumb down these engineers. If top 1% students of India all go to the
same institutes and yet those institutes do not produce top quality inventors,
engineers, world class research or any Nobel Prize winners our doubts only get stronger. If none of these institutes are listed even
in the top 200 in the world, we can strongly cast a doubt on efficacy of such
institutes and their admission process.

The time has come for Indian institutes to mature
up. The admission procedures across all
premier institutions have to become more subjective while adhering to strong
objective goals. It has to take into
account the passion, the interest of the candidate, his academic performance,
his entrance test scores, and his socio-economic background. Only a subjective evaluation which is based
on very stringent objective goals can select the candidates on various scales –
from selecting those who have strong passion and interest but have not
performed well in tests to selecting those who come from disadvantaged
socio-economic groups.

Another nonsense article. So your solution for the fact that IITs are not competitive among world universities is to have more students who cannot even pass the existing exams to join in? Sounds like instead of improving IITs rankings, you want to make them open universities where anyone regardless of their performance can get in. Great Indian mindset. Destroy what little competitive success we have in society so that idiots like you can feel good about themselves.

Your solution is so brilliant you should suggest it for MIT and Stanford.. or maybe only warangal institute of technology deserves this brilliance.

"The time has come for Indian institutes to mature up. The admission procedures across all premier institutions have to become more subjective while adhering to strong objective goals."

Pious intentions but unimplementable. Any subjective element will simply give rise to more corruption. A case can similarly be made that instead of blanket reservations on the basis of caste actual discrimination faced should be the criteria. Surely more logical and more desirable. The only problem will be that it will be unimplementable.~ Vinod

It seems Indian decision makers and those opposing these decisions, just for the sake of keeping their own interests are totally bringing chaos and disrespect to every institution for any small change either government wants to bring in or the opposing people wants to bring in.

Hello Sujai, this is another topic that I would be thankful if you explore:

Buying farmland in India is impossible for the majority of the Indians, because of rules that forbid anyone and everyone from buying farmland except those who are already farmers or have a 7/12 extract of a farm land in their family.

I can see two reasons for this,

1) To cordon off a large section of Indians fertile land corner it for the politicians and elite, who can get a 7/12 extract for anything, and then reap tax free profits as agricultural income is tax free.

2) Caste apartheid, historically only the upper classes, the top three ones were allowed to hold land in India and the Shudras were denied any land holding. This is just an extension of the same system under various guise of protecting the farmers and depriving them of land holdings and keeping them at the mercy of the landlords.

@Anon1, Institutes like MIT and Stanford already have the subjective entrance criteria like Sujai suggested, taking into account the passion, the interest of the candidate, his academic performance, his entrance test scores, and his socio-economic background.

@Anon2, such an admission process is not unimplementable. It is already being followed by institutes like ISB Hyderabad, only unfortunately ISB looks for diversity just in terms of professional background of candidates and not social(caste/ ethnicity etc). Since IITs/IIMs are government funded/owned institutes they need to focus on these.

Now I want to speak on this, often, people in india say that caste system should go away and blah blah, then why don't public schools allow the poor kids to study? There is a scene in the movie arakshan where a rich parent says to the teacher that 'YE LOG NAHATA BHI NAHI HAI', that's the reality. And in my opinion, IIT/IIM etc propagates more casteism, by being elitist. And those who say that ancient india was elitist, they must check once again, who used to be kings and risk taking was always there in the society. May be things got changed after mughal/turks/british arrived here

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